


From You I Have Been Absent

by noodlenat101



Category: Jane Eyre - All Media Types, Jane Eyre - Charlotte Brontë
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-13
Updated: 2019-02-12
Packaged: 2019-10-27 05:36:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17760797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noodlenat101/pseuds/noodlenat101
Summary: Jane never attends Lowood School.





	From You I Have Been Absent

Her nineteen year life had taught Jane Eyre only three things: John Reed was a brute and a bully of the worst kind, her Aunt and female cousins had neither the benefits nor graces of their sex, and a private and personal education could potentially free a woman of no means if her relations were gentry.

 

She thought all of these things from the small bedroom that had been her sanctuary for as long as she could remember. She grabbed her own elbows, squeezing so tight her knuckles were white.

 

Because John Reed had just proposed to her, and she had accepted. That is to say, if he were at all a kind man and she at all a submissive woman, was how it would have gone. They were to be married either way.

 

All this happened minutes ago under the displeased eyes of her Aunt Reed, who’s distaste was for her niece and the situation she had stumbled upon--one that could not be ignored. John Reed had Jane pushed up against the wall of the corridor, one hand tightly wrapped around her thin and pale wrist and the other pressing harshly down the front of her bodice, ignoring both her other hand that was balled into a fist and pounding at whatever she could reach and also her tears and shouts to stop.

 

Aunt Reed stood several meters away, back lit and terrible in the afternoon sunshine, dust spinning wildly around everything in the narrow corridor.

 

“Jonathan!” she croaked, a broken whisper. “What have you done to us?”

 

He stepped away, flushed, eyebrows drawn close together over dull colored brown eyes, a nose that had been broken once in a club brawl before he was kicked out, and a mouth that was thin with displeasure most of the time, just like his mother.

 

“It’s just Jane Eyre,” he said mulishly, as if he was complaining about a correction from a tutor, as he often had.

 

Jane had snatched back both her hands and pressed them close to the stretched neckline of her gown. It’s high neckline and plain bodice now was missing two buttons and had popped several stitches. Jane felt bruising forming along her collarbone, felt her nose running, felt her tears dripping off of her chin. A great shuddering breath drew in and out of her lungs and she felt very far away.

 

“You’ve ruined your father’s favorite, is what you’ve done,” she said waspishly, drawing closer in a great stride of rustling dark green satin, and she grabbed her son by the ear as if he was a child not learning his lesson quick enough.

 

“You will fix this by announcing your proposal. Go write the banns. Now. I will review them before you take them. Go. ” She practically threw her son toward the stairs.

 

“And you,” she said, turning toward her niece. “You...you _pernicious little slattern_. How could you toy with my son like this? You’ve ruined each other! And now I shall have to live with you forever.”

 

Jane Eyre was still struggling to stop crying, but her anger had always been sharp and vicious since her childhood.   


“Please Madam. I will be the one who will have to live with your _unlicked cub._ And who said I was going to agree to marry him? I would rather live sullied and solitary than spend one more minute in his presence.”

 

Mrs. Reed slapped her soundly, and grabbed the skinny young woman by the upper arm, half dragging her to her small bedroom in the Western Wing of the house.   


“If you do not agree by dinner I will cast you out. So you best think on your sins.”

 

Jane heard the door to her room slam behind her. She quickly turned the lock and pulled the key from the handle. She clenched her hand and struggled to breathe.

 

She had to accept. Didn’t she? If she were cast out, where could she go? How could she support herself? Her reputation would be ruined and no good man would touch her.

 

She laid a trembling palm against her collar and thought that not even a good one could tempt her to marriage.

 

She unbuttoned her dress as quickly as she could, then stepped to her basin of wash water and soap. The water was cool but fresh, the soap scented with a familiar scent of rosemary.

 

She washed and dressed for dinner and tried to plan. She had five pounds saved, She had three dresses for daytime and two for evening, one coat and only one pair of shoes that would be good for walking cross-country.

 

She could say she accepted and then disappear. They would not miss her, and it would solve their problems as well as hers. However, the problem kept returning to ‘how would she support herself?’

 

She drew paper from her desk and set to writing herself a resume, including the short phrase “privately educated, willing to prove efficacy.”

 

She included a coin for the newspaper and folded it into an envelope, sealed with wax. She could walk to post it after dinner. She would ask that any responses be sent to the post office rather than the house.

 

Aunt Reed wasn’t always the brightest woman, but she never did receive any mail.

 

When Jane appeared for dinner her Aunt and cousins were already seated. Their glares were more pronounced tonight, hinting at a family meeting of a sort happening while her plans were being made in solitude.

 

Mrs. Reed asked John to say grace, and not a single other word was said until the last course was being cleared.

 

“We will post the Banns on Saturday, Miss Eyre. This is something you will do, for our family to keep offering its hospitality to you."  John was staring at his cleared setting with glazed eyes. His sister Eliza did a fair imitation of her mother, her nose held in the same high position as her.

 

“But if they do not have self-control, let them marry; for it is better to marry than to burn with passion,” she recited, with a sniff.

 

Georgiana beside her sighed with boredom.

 

“How loathsome John,” she said rolling her eyes, “That you will have to marry Jane instead of a beautiful heiress and bring some fortune to the family, or some beauty.”

 

John snorted like a boar about to charge whatever unfortunate soul was bothering it.

 

“Ta, I’m to bed.”

 

Mrs. Reed had not taken her eyes off her niece.

 

“These stipulations are satisfactory, Jane?”

 

Jane spoke for the first time since that afternoon.

 

“No,” she said quietly while rising. “But I suppose they shall have to do. Goodnight.”

 

As Jane retreated to the stairs, she heard several feminine voices exchange words in uncomplimentary tones. She waits until the clock strikes two, then descends each set of stairs with the patience of a child who learned to move quietly or be doomed to stillness. The letter being posted is a small relief. 

 

She does not sleep well that night, but as dawn begins to pinken the gray horizon, she dresses. She has much to plan for and little time to do it.

  
  



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